Classic and new Christmas specials and longer videos. See what I add all year and see if one of your favorites is on the list.
“You know, maybe civilization isn’t so bad after all.”
Thunderbolt v3 #58
Charlton Comics Group (July, 1967)
“Encore: The Hooded One”
CREATOR/WRITER/ARTIST: PAM
Sentinels: “Into The Lair Of The…Mind-Bender”
WRITER: S. O’Shaughnessy, which Comic Book Plus claims is Denny O’Neil
ARTIST: Sam Grainger
LETTERER: Bob Agnew
EDITOR: Dick Giordano
Tell others about the Spotlight:
Chapter by Chapter features me reading one chapter (or possibly multiple chapters for this one) of the selected book at the time and reviewing it as if I were reviewing an episode of a TV show or an issue of a comic. There will be spoilers if you haven’t read to the point I have, and if you’ve read further I ask that you don’t spoil anything further into the book. Think of it as read-along book club.
In the previous chapter we met Vicki, whose last name is added in later stories, so for now we only know her as Vicki. We also met Bennett and learned of a mysterious person named Koquillion, who we know from the back of the book is the enemy of the story.
Now we turn our attention to the current travellers in the TARDIS. For those of you late to the party, the current team is:
- The Doctor, a mysterious man who owns the Time And Relative Dimensions In Space box that’s bigger on the inside and currently stuck in the form of an old British Police Call Box because of
the show’s budget issuesa faulty chameleon circuit. At the time the writers themselves hadn’t decided if he was a man from the future or another planet entirely. This is the very first incarnation of the Doctor, accept no retcons, and one of two times the Doctor made it to old age. Premature aging doesn’t count, Tennant fans! - Barbara Wright, one of two school teachers who followed a mysterious student to a junkyard and got caught up space/time shenanigans. She’s a school teacher, and provided the show’s historical knowledge.
- Ian Chesterton, the other school teacher and basically the muscle of the group more or less. He’s a science teacher and provided the science info for the show. At least under the original plans. The teaching history and science stuff kind of went out the window early. You can read about the intended roles in the review of production notes for the early days of the show.
The final member is gone, and now the TARDIS is in a cave on the planet that Vicki and Bennett are on. We’re still in the first episode of the arc, “The Powerful Enemy”. Let’s see how our heroes are getting along.
Tell others about the Spotlight:
Or “Prime goes full 90s when he was already 3/4th 90s”.
Prime #11
Malibu Comics/Ultraverse (April, 1994)
“Heroes Of Sunset Strip”
WRITERS: Gerald Jones & Len Strazewski
ARTIST: Norm Breyfogle
COLORIST: Keith Conroy & Violent Hues
LETTERER: Tim Eldred
EDITOR: Hank Kanalz
Tell others about the Spotlight:
Catch more from The Art Of Aaron Blaise on YouTube
And Disney let this guy go.
Tell others about the Spotlight:
And our holiday arc begins. Not holiday themed, mind you.
I couldn’t think of a good Christmas themed story, but this should be a good arc for the season anyway. Who is watching our Leon, how are they watching him, and why are they watching him? The answers will come but this is also a good way to introduce the cast to newcomers.
Over at The Clutter Reports this week, the Christmas decorating is only partly done because Saturday was terrible and I have a plan that will make future decorating sessions easier on me. As it was I was so tired I forgot to label it as a quick report.
Yes, the Christmas season starts tomorrow, and so do the Christmas postings. I’ll be adding or revisiting songs, skits, specials, and having a few Christmas themed posts scattered during the month of December. Hopefully I can get them in among the Chapter By Chapter review of Doctor Who: The Rescue (novelisation), the continued look into CBS’s almost Saturday morning Transformers show, and the comic reviews and current event stuff. Plus I want to get Captain Yuletide out this year on time and I’m of course behind schedule. How that affects things we’ll have to see.
Have a great week, everyone, and I hope your Thanksgiving was a good one.
Tell others about the Spotlight:
A little post-Thanksgiving bonus before the Christmas specials start.
It’s rare to get a movie based on a TV show. I don’t mean these reimagined garbage movies that bear little to no resemblance to the source material unless it’s outright mocking it. I mean the show itself having a movie. You had the occasional reunion like Star Trek: The Motion Picture or The Return Of Maxwell Smart, but an active movie, especially a kids cartoon, getting a theatrical exclusive? Not likely. Then there was The Transformers: The Movie, a 1986 movie that altered the timeline of the cartoon. The movie was set in the far off year of 2005, with season three taking place in 2006. It introduced a new cast while killing off a huge amount of the old one to do so, as Hasbro wanted to push the new toys and didn’t realize the kids had connected so strongly to the old characters.
In Japan, kids are used to watching their heroes die to be replaced with new characters whether there were toys involved or not. Instead of the final three episode miniseries “The Rebirth”, they got The Headmasters, which killed off Optimus Prime (known in Japan as “Convoy”) a second time, after having to explain his death in Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers 2010, since they opted to go five years beyond the American timeline. It wouldn’t be until after The Headmasters, Masterforce, and even Victory that select events got to see a Japanese subbed version of the English movie, and even longer before a Japanese dub of the movie would be made. Tonight I bring you that dub with English subtitles, bring things a bit full circle. You can learn more about the history at the TF Wiki.
You may be wondering why you should even bother watching that version when you already have the English version available to you, or at least you’ve seen it. That’s where the first of our extras comes in, also a way to make this post viable if the feature presentation is every taken down. TJ Omega is how I learned of this version of the movie showing up on YouTube, and he explains why it’s worth watching. Of course, you might want to wait until after you see the movie, to see if you can spot the differences first and then wait for TJ to list them all. That’s one of two extra bonuses before we get to the movie itself. Enjoy.
BW Media Spotlight 